Sustainability’s Growing Resonance in Business: Infographic

Slowly but surely, sustainability has begun to enact its influence on MBA curricula, with more and specializations and courses available in the field, as well as in the related areas of CSR, business ethics and social entrepreneurship.

Part of this has been because of increased demand for such courses among students. A 2014 Net Impact survey of students attending graduate business programs, for instance, found a desire to see more attention paid to sustainability, not just in courses but also in career and experiential learning opportunities, and some schools have moved directly to meet student demand.

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However, there are those who feel there is still some way to go in implementing sustainability teaching in MBA programs – with the argument that the subject needs to find its way onto the core, rather than elective, areas of more business schools’ MBA programs.

The infographic below, which comes courtesy of Northeastern University’s D'Amore-McKim School of Business, charts the road sustainability has taken from its earliest origins to its place today, at the center of international initiatives. It also identifies examples of corporations who have championed the ideals of sustainability in their business practices.